The invention relates to desktop publishing (DTP). In electronic line composition, a spacing amount between adjacent characters must be set in order to arrange a series of input characters in each line in an electronic text. In electronic composition based on Japanese text, an extremely large number of characters and many types of characters must be processed, and therefore it is necessary to rationally set the spacing amount based on character attributes. In practice, however, each publishing company has its own rules, and in existing electronic composition systems it is complicated to set the spacing amount between characters. This leads to operations that are difficult and hard to understand for a user. JISX 4051-1995 provides guidelines for line composition and describes inter-character spacing amounts, but does not address how a user can easily and rationally set inter-character spacing amounts.
A character spacing amount is required when arranging input characters in each line in an electronic text. In electronic composition, line composition involves properly adjusting the spacing amount based on processing of characters that cannot appear at the beginning or end of lines and each character's properties, and so on. Therefore, preset values for the spacing amount are provisional in line composition, and ultimately the spacing amount is adjusted in line composition processing. The inter-character spacing amounts are determined to some extent by the contents of an electronic document, and therefore it is important in electronic composition that a user be able to easily and quickly set this type of spacing amount.
As described above, in existing electronic composition art a user can set the spacing amount between a pair of adjacent characters. An electronic document in which Japanese is present has a large number of characters and character types, so there are many possibilities for setting spacing amounts. Accordingly, when performing text composition spacing amount setting, a user does not immediately know what sort of setting items are being set, so the spacing amount is likely to be set erroneously.